When you type the name of a business into your browser and hit search, what kinds of things come up? A Yelp profile? A Facebook page? Blog posts? A business website? Or all of the above?
The answer is usually E. Regardless of what and how you manage your own business website, social media affects much more than the search results when someone looks for your business online. It can help you build and grow your brand and business reputation, provide leads and conversions, guide new customers your way, and help you understand and establish a relationship with your target market that leads to brand loyalty. Social media facilitates all kinds of stuff you won’t find and can’t do with just a business website.
So while we look at how to respond to expectations for social media in 2015, remember just how important social media marketing is for growth opportunities and ROI.
1. Be Prepared to Spend Money to Get in Front of Your Audience
Not only is Facebook’s organic content reach dropping further and further, but more and more activity is occurring on Facebook, which means more potential eyeballs to view your content. While it was incorrectly anticipated that in 2014 Facebook would lose momentum and die out, the opposite happened. In other words, in order to ensure your content is seen by as much of your audience as possible, you’re going to have to fork over the social advertising dollars.
2. Funny Videos and Cute Photos: Keep ‘Em Coming
You may or may not know that Facebook recently grabbed YouTube’s number one spot for having the most videos viewed — over one billion in one day. When you consider how much else there is to do on Facebook, that number is astonishing. YouTube is pretty much solely for watching videos. But Facebook has a whole slew of activity options, and yet still has a billion video views in a day. This has fairly obvious implications: Up your video marketing game this year, because lots of people are watching lots of videos. However, your audience will expect more and more from social media videos, so be prepared to bring your video creation A-game.
3. Be There
You can’t do any of the above if you treat your social media accounts like that pipe in the basement you check on once a week because it tends to leak. While you may not necessarily have to devote as much to real-time social media interaction this year, establishing an authoritative brand presence starts with being … well, present. Take Dover Downs for example. They commonly answer questions on their Facebook page within an hour or two of being asked. This is huge when it comes to customer service.
4. Don’t Use Hashtags on Every Other Word
More than one major brand has seriously screwed up by either not totally understanding hashtags or making it seem that way by barreling into a trending topic with a totally irrelevant hashtag. Take a lesson from DiGiorno pizza, and don’t butt into every single trending hashtagged conversation. Be genuine with your audience, because they won’t let you get away with pop-up-tweets that have nothing to do with the conversation.
Plenty of other things this year will impact your social media marketing: effective content, campaign planning, post and interaction timing, which platforms and apps to use. These things all play into the effectiveness of your social media marketing, but perhaps the most important aspect is to prioritize your audience in any social media endeavor — not simply what they might buy.
